Cabinet for conducting careful review of SOEs

The cabinet has directed that a careful review of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) should be conducted to categorise them as "essential" or "strategic" in a bid to keep them with the government.

Sources told The Express Tribune that the Cabinet Division had undertaken an exercise to categorise the SOEs. In a recent meeting, the cabinet observed that the exercise required careful consideration and a sound rationale for categorising the SOEs as "essential" or "strategic" and to decide which SOEs should stay with the government, privatised or wound up.

Some members underlined the need for further deliberation and recommended the holding of a meeting, chaired by the prime minister, to finalise matters.

A briefing was given to the cabinet by the Cabinet Division on "categorisation of state-owned enterprises as strategic/essential".

According to the category-wise breakdown, the total number of SOEs was 84. The number of SOEs reviewed by the Cabinet Committee on SOEs was 61, of which 15 were categorised as essential. The SOEs categorised as strategic were five and the SOEs identified for privatisation were 18.

The cabinet directed all the ministries and divisions concerned to further rationalise the necessity and decide whether they should be kept with the government or privatise. The government was also working on rightsizing the ministries and divisions, which will result in rightsizing the state firms. Under the plan, the government has decided to wind up some SOEs.

Earlier, the cabinet was given a presentation on the performance of SOEs, where it was apprised that the Cabinet Committee on SOEs had held several meetings to consider proposals of administrative divisions relating to the retention of their SOEs by declaring them as "strategic" or "essential."

Based on the progress made so far, following details were placed before the cabinet:

The total number of SOEs identified by the Finance Division was 84, of which 55 were taken up for consideration by the Cabinet Committee on SOEs. The number of SOEs categorised as essential stood at 13 while five were categorised as strategic. Some 15 SOEs were planned to be privatised whereas 22 were in the pipeline for consideration by the Cabinet Committee on SOEs with directives.

The cabinet was apprised that a comprehensive programme was being prepared and the SOEs, duly examined by the cabinet committee, were in the pipeline.

The government has started the rightsizing drive with the IT ministry. It has decided to shut down and privatise certain institutions attached to the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication as part of its rightsizing programme. The Institutional Reforms Committee has directed that the Telecom Foundation should be shut down and its subsidiaries privatised.

The National Information Technology Board (NITB) is set to undergo a massive restructuring in an effort to become a lean organisation partnering with private service providers and adopting an outsourced model.